Most Like It Hot if truth be told, which is slightly perplexing to the Few It Leaves Cold. The early mobsters scenes in Prohibition era Chicago have a gleeful cynicism to them and Tony Curtis' Cary Grant impersonation is hilarious. But basically, the film voted No 1 on the American Film Institute's list of Funniest Movies is a men-in-skirts movie.

Wilder's film is that comparative rarity, a film whose popularity and standing hasn't varied over the years. A box office and award season hit when it came out, it status has remained undiminished ever since. Its one of those classic films that was handed down to you as an unimpeachably good thing by the Barry Norman/ Parky hegemony – a proper movie with proper stars. This is fine for a Casablanca or a Gone With The Wind, but for a raucous low brow farce it seems inappropriate, it ossifies its bawdy appeal.

So part of the reason I've never liked this film is me being chippy, rejecting being told what to like by the previous generation. But now I am the boring old fart and I still don't get it. Curtis and Lemmon are a damn fine drag act though no better than, for example, Bernard Bresslaw in a Carry On film. Granted, the script has plenty of sharp wisecracks but just as much of it is dated innuendo. And no matter how often we are told otherwise, “Nobody's perfect,” is not a classic last line.